


when the stars don't align

by sepulcher



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepulcher/pseuds/sepulcher
Summary: A questionable guide on coping with unacknowledged depression and how to deal with feeling like you've lost everything, by Leon, ft. all of the people who love him.Or: what is there, in theafteryou never see coming?
Relationships: Leon/Raihan
Comments: 20
Kudos: 517





	when the stars don't align

**Author's Note:**

> this whole mess is largely a character study of leon more so than it is anything else, with his love for raihan and everyone else he loves sprinkled liberally here and there. i'd like to jokingly call this a love letter to his character, but it's more or less my interpretation of the one dimensional view of him that we got in the game, and i just took it and ran. while throwing in some real world british holidays. also, i'm not british, so if my dispersal of slang is questionable... i'm so sorry. (also this isn't beta'd or proof read) that being said: enjoy!

Turned out that fighting and trying to capture a legendary does a number on the body. Common sense alone could have told him as much, really, but at the time it had seemed like, well. Not a good idea, certainly. At the time it seemed like he was the only option, the only way out from this whole mess that Chairman Rose had landed the region in trying to avoid something thousands of years in the future. As if the whole of the region was depending on him. Leaning on him. Looking to him to prevent catastrophe.

But he failed. But he fell. When he woke again it was practically a day later and he was informed that Gloria, the kid that he had sponsored for the Champion Cup, had been the one successful in catching Eternatus, alongside his brother and two legendary pokémon that had been lost to history. Apparently.

It didn’t register at first. Or moments later. He remained sitting on his hospital bed staring at the dark television mounted on the wall, mind jumbled. He felt winded and his entire body ached from head to toe, as though he had gone far too hard at the gym for a full body work out yesterday and was paying the price today, but multiplied two fold. The sun was slanting its way merrily into the room, casting brightness over his bed. The monitor tracking his heartbeat was beeping just behind and to the right of him. Raihan was looking at him on his left, his hat removed and his locs swept to the side. His expression was strange. Intent and waiting for something. For him, probably.

Silences didn’t fit them well. Leon had always been one for quiet, enough so that a great deal of people commented on how talkative Hop was in comparison, but Raihan filled silences without consciously deciding to with his words and his presence alone, both raucous and loud and attention grabbing with absolute ease. Simply by being himself.

“Leon.”

“Yes?”

“Did you hear me?”

“I did,” Leon turned and realized, belated, that he was wearing a hospital gown and that his hat was missing. His eyes tracked automatically for it, only to find it in Raihan’s hands, bending and unbending the bill as he always had whenever he got one of Leon’s hats. “That’s fantastic,” he continued after a beat of silence, “I’m glad that catastrophe was averted and the day was saved.”

The words were true. But why did they feel so empty?

Raihan’s expression didn’t change or lift, still that strange expectation lingering. Waiting. Leon’s chest ached, a feeling settled deep in his chest that was uncomfortable and ill placed. The hat in his hands twisted, before he reached over and placed it on Leon’s head, covering what he was sure was a mess on his head, half matted and half riotous. At the last moment Raihan pulled on the bill, lowering it well over Leon’s face.

“Hey!” Leon said, and felt as though they had been transported ten years into the past. Ten years. Had it really been that long since the start? It couldn’t be. And yet.

When he had adjusted the hat Raihan was lounging in his chair, leaned against the arm with his head tilted against his hand, gazing at him. The new angle allowed the sunlight to be slanted over his face, but indirectly that it didn’t look like he was being blinded. His skin looked warmer than usual in the light. “Rose confessed his ridiculous plan and his part in it and was taken into custody. Serves him right, after all that.”

“Ah, yes… it does,” Leon said, gaze flickering down and back again. He felt all at once guilty. A rush of it, settling bitterly at the base of his throat. Impossible to swallow.

“What? Don’t tell me you’re feeling sympathy for him.”

“No, not that,” a frown pulled at his mouth, subtle. Slight. “It’s nothing.”

“Come on,” Raihan rolled his eyes, “when have I ever let you avoid something?”

Well, he had a point there, even though Leon knew that Raihan gave him some leeway. Shreds of it, every now and then. “I just wonder if I could have stopped this from happening.”

“How?” Raihan laughed and it was a far more dry sound than his usual carrying, warm laughs. “By pinning him down and not letting him move? By figuring out his plans earlier and talking him out of it? He fooled everyone, not just you.”

“He told me some of his plan,” Leon said, smoothing at a crease in the sheet. There were a lot of creases. “He wanted my help with it… thought that I was the only one who could do it. Something about a strong pokémon, and providing Galar with energy for the rest of time.”

“Depending on you as the Greatest Champion,” a smile pulled at Raihan’s face. This was a familiar sort of mockery, not mean nor rude in the least. Just Raihan being Raihan with Leon, really.

“Yeah. I told him to hold off because what matters is now and I wanted to finish the tournament. Give everyone the battle that they wanted to see, because that’s what matters. Looks like he went on ahead with it anyways.”

“He must’ve been right chuffed,” this laugh was far more like Raihan’s real laugh. He straightened, leaving the beam of light that had been illuminating him. “Don’t blame yourself Leon. Obviously Rose was going to do whatever he wanted to do and was depending on you for putting the region above anything else.”

“I suppose.”

“Leon——”

“No, I know,” he did, truly. Rose’s crazy plan had been started without Leon’s physical presence, despite how Rose had insisted that he had to be present, ready, and accounted for. He had depended on Leon to drop everything to stop it all. Depended on it, and he had delivered. It was both frustrating and concerning, to be read by someone so thoroughly. “But still. Can’t help but wonder, you know?”

“It worked out,” Raihan lifted his feet to set them on the hospital bed beside Leon’s legs. “You’re alive and the day was saved.”

But not by him.

Leon chewed on the inside of his mouth for a moment, before turning away.

* * *

Three days after Eternatus’s release and subsequent capture, Leon requested at the Champion Cup be concluded, likely with him reigning as Champion once more.

* * *

To say that he had never been defeated wasn’t technically the truth. Sure, he'd never been defeated _officially_. But before he became the youngest ever Champion of the region at 13 years old, and at the beginning of his journey he had lost as much as he had won. When it all started, with him and Sonia leaving Postwick together. They practically had an even 50-50 split in their practice battles, and he narrowly lost his first real battle with Sonia, after they had made the decision to leave for their journies together, with his Charmander and her Yamper in tow. That split had continued throughout their respective journeys, until it didn’t.

Leon had run into a lot of amazing opponents through his travels. Raihan, of course, being one of them, and the one that sticks out most brightly in his memory. As if he had reached into Leon’s mind and bolded himself, put lights on himself, increased the saturation of his presence retroactively. It’s only natural, really, to consider his greatest rival in such a light so many years after they first met.

The first time he had battled Raihan, somewhere on route 6 beneath a cloudy grey sky when it had been drizzling gently, his hair had been shorter and Raihan and been sporting his natural tight curls, a poof of an afro around his head. And Leon had lost. His newly evolved Charmeleon had still been trying to settle into his brand new skin, and the force that Raihan had posed seemed insurmountable. Leon had been in awe, wide eyed and open mouthed and amazed with this boy and the confidence and ease he seemed battled with.

“That was amazing,” he had said, genuine and breathless even as he cradled Axew in his arms, staring at Raihan with his head tilted.

“Yeah, I guess,” Raihan said, halfway to bashful as he scratched the back of his head. “I’m pretty good. But you almost got me there, a few times.”

“I did, cause I’m good too,” he squared his shoulders proudly, “But you won in the end!” Leon wasn’t upset about his loss, though. He was exhilarated and didn’t look away from his new rival, even as he returned Axew, who had started to wriggle restlessly in his arms, to her pokéball. They were both a few minutes away from being soaked through, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, his heart was beating too fast. “The tactics that you used and how your pokémon really used their surroundings was fantastic. I never knew what to expect!”

“Thanks,” Raihan grinned, wide and toothy, and maybe pinked a little around his ears. “I’m hoping that it can all help me become the next Champion!”

“Maybe, but that’ll be hard when I’m Champion,” Leon felt emboldened by the energy that Raihan seemed to be exuding.

“Guess that makes you my number one rival.”

“Count on it.”

Even then, beneath the standard bleak sky of Galar with light rain starting to soak them, Raihan had seemed like he was in technicolor.

* * *

Leon lost for the first time in ten years to the fourteen year old that he had sponsored. A sudden hush fell over the stadium as Charizard shrunk from his massive form, just barely being edged out by his opponent, as though everyone was holding their breath. As though no one could truly believe that the unthinkable had come to past, never mind that the whole region had nearly been wiped out three days ago. Disbelief gripped him, ill-timed and misplaced, perhaps. In those three seconds he felt bereft, wide eyed, watching as Charizard fell to the ground, normal sized once more.

His breaths were staggered. Stitled. He felt off kilter. Uneven.

And then he burst into motion. An abrupt twist and turn as he removed his hat, his crown, and threw it high in the air, not watching its arc for all that he wanted to. For all that something inside of him, something base and screaming and angry, perhaps, demanded that he watch it fall.

Suddenly, as though his movement had been the trigger,the stadium surged with blaring excitement as he announced, loud and resonating, that there was a new Galar Champion, after all these years.

He grinned. He laughed. He ran to Gloria and lifted her onto his shoulders as she trembled and waved and he could see her smiling wide on the monitors all around them as cameras whirled to keep track of their face as he revolved, slow, allowing her to wave at every last person sitting in this stadium who had watched her triumph, sitting on the edge of their seats.

Something in his chest throbbed, sharp and painful, and he smiled, still.

* * *

His townhouse, which he had moved into three years after becoming Champion when the commute had started to become too much, had always been somewhat sparse. Sonia called it, “Barren.” Elaine, the girl he had dated pretty seriously when he was twenty, had called it, “Minimalist.” His mom, the handful of times that she had seen it, just sighed. Raihan just called it, “Sad,” several times, laughing, and slung his arm over Leon’s shoulders, giving him a gentle shake.

It never seemed too empty to him. Sure, it never had many decorations and he didn’t see much use behind more furniture than he absolutely needed, but it served its purpose of providing him a place to stay in Wyndon and it never seemed necessary to bring over all of the small details from his room in Postwick here. In fact, he had preferred to keep the vast majority of his hat collection there, as if preserving the memories that it afforded. And, sometimes, it felt a little like leaving a piece of himself there, too. Something that couldn’t be erased or forgotten.

Standing in the entrance foyer of his place hours after his defeat, after dealing with all of the press and the interviews and the questions of how it felt to be dethroned after all this time, he suddenly understood why everyone felt the need to comment on his decor. It felt vacant. As though no one really lived here at all. As if, if he were to walk upstairs into his bedroom, the bed would be pristine and untouched, like no one had ever slept in it at all.

The lights were too bright and the walls too barren, a bland off-white that confounded him. There was a long runner carpet in the foyer that was a boring shade of cream, the sort of thing that he didn’t like very much, and he wondered how it had gotten there.

Even the kitchen seemed empty. His refrigerator had several rows of water bottles and energy drinks on the second shelf and an apple and a bunch of celery in one of the drawers and nothing else. The freezer had frozen fruit and a few “healthy” microwavable dinners. Some of his pans were gathering dust, and his silverware was immaculately polished. Glimmering in the too bright overhead lights.

It was strange. He liked cooking. No, he loved it. Always had, even when he was a kid and was always helping his mum and grandma make dinner. A handful of years ago he had made a point to make dinner at least five nights per week in this very kitchen, by hand and from scratch.

When had that changed? When had everything changed?

In his bag, deposited on the island counter, his phone buzzed and it popped out of the open pocket he had thrown it in. Rotom flew over to him, screen bright and swaying. He tipped his head, not bothering to ask Rotom to still itself, and saw that it was a text message from Raihan. And above it a message from Hop. One from his mum, too. And Sonia.

His phone, recognizing his face, started to display the message, and it occurred to him that he should read it, properly, and respond to it. That he should do something with it, certainly, because this is Raihan and he always talked to Raihan whenever he messaged him about anything and everything random and strange under the sun, whether it be something that his pokémon had done that day or a weird rock that he found on the ground.

He should talk to his best friend. His brother. His mom. Any one of them.

“Not right now,” he said to his Rotom, smiling for all that it felt strange and awkward on his face. “I’m kind of beat.”

He should say something. Anything. Even just to say that he’s hitting the sack.

Instead he laid down in his bed and stared at the dark ceiling until he falls asleep, hours later. His phone vibrated several times on his nightstand, and after the third time Rotom didn’t bother trying to show him the message anymore.

* * *

Leon had a lot of interviews to go to. Altogether more than he’s had in years, but not as many as he had in the first two years of his being Champion, and not as many as Gloria seemed to have. It was only natural that people want to talk to him, he’s accepted that long ago, and furthermore that they want to press him for details and information about his defeat. About how he felt about it. So on and so forth.

For each and every one he said approximately the same thing. Interviews are cyclical, and the key was to have a consistent narrative, or that’s what his management agency taught him long ago. Champions have to present themselves as the face of their region, and being on your game at all times is a natural side effect of that.

“We had a Champion time,” he said, smiling his practiced, easy smile. “It was an exhilarating battle, and I fought hard to the end! Gloria came out on top because of her abilities. I’m proud of her, as a sponsor, friend, and the former Champion.”

And again. And again. And again.

In the two weeks following his defeat life was as cyclical as the interviews. He woke up, ate an apple for breakfast, worked out at the small gym he had in his townhouse, showered, went to two interviews throughout the afternoon, ate dinner, and several times spoke to Gloria about the responsibilities of a Champion. No one ever told kids, or anyone, about what a Champion had to do, really. What Champions were meant to do. All most people knew was that they were celebrities. They seemed to appear everywhere.

The former Champion, who had held the title for two years, had patted his shoulder after talking to him a few times and told him _good luck_.

There was more responsibility than most people would assume. Yes, Champions were celebrities, but they were also figures that the public lean on for support. They were more than government workers in offices. They’re touchable and tangible and the public reached for them, depended on them in some regard. When disaster strikes, Champions were there.

They even impacted politics, for whatever good that could do. Leon had unwittingly influenced the vote for Prime Minister. He had influenced governing and so on and so forth. Champions held a certain measure of power, which was why some higher ups thought it best to consider instating an age rule.

Nonetheless, In the tumult that was left after Rose’s plan, the public needed something to place their hopes on. Gloria was a perfect chance, as she quelled and caught Eternatus, and they had favored her as a result anyways. But the full reality of the situation was slow to settle, considering that Rose owned just about everything in Galar, and in the aftermath of it all there was a power vacuum the likes of which shouldn’t be possible.

Gloria seemed steadily more overwhelmed with each meeting of theirs, but steadied herself well enough. She accepted this new responsibility of hers and didn’t seem in any hurry to lose to someone in order to rid herself of the task at hand. Leon was proud of her for as much, and tried to guide her as best as he could, answering her calls and texts and meeting with her whenever requested. Speaking to her was strangely easy, considering that she had ended his winning streak and taken his title.

He had talked to his mum a few times. His brother, too. With each conversation he felt oddly distant, for all that he had been close to his family throughout his childhood and persisted in trying to do as much after becoming champion. He had even lived at home for as long as he could, not wanting to be away from them longterm.

“It’s been ages since you last visited,” his mum said one night.

“Not so long, mum,” he said, staring out of the window of his bedroom at the cobblestone street down below.

“Longer than you think,” she said, and he heard water running in the background and several splashes. Washing the dishes, probably. There was a pause before, “I’m worried about you, Leon.”

“What? Why?”

“You’ve been distant,” he could imagine her standing at the kitchen sink, elbow deep in sudsy water. He could imagine and could even hear, if he concentrated hard enough, music playing in the background. Something melodical and nostalgic. And he could imagine the television on in the living room, playing an absurd drama that his grandma and mum liked to watch together, something from their own childhoods that he never quite got, but enjoyed all the same. He could smell the heavy spices lingering in the air, and the curry that he could never get perfectly right the way he mum did, but that he dreamed of all the same along with the naan that she made, oblong and soft in his hands.

“It’s been busy recently. I have to be on it, don’t want everything to go pear shaped during the transition period,” it was true, but it felt like a lie.

“I understand that,” the sink shut off, and he heard the sound of water draining, “but it’s been longer than that. Ages, I think.”

He felt bare. As though he had been divested of all of his pokéballs and his defenses and he was sat beneath some contraption. A guillotine or something, perhaps. Something that could cause serious damage. Lasting damage. All of a sudden he was aware of how dry his throat felt, and the quickened cadence of his heart, and he felt displaced. Off center. The world had shifted beneath him and no one had let him know in the meantime that this was the new status quo, or something along those lines. He chewed on his lip watching as two people on bikes made their way down the street.

“It’s just something I want you to think about,” his mum said, and he had no idea how long he had been silent. “I’ll let you get your rest, though. Don’t want you too tired tomorrow.”

“Thanks, mum.”

“Goodnight, my little dandelion.”

She hadn’t called him that in a while. Months, at least. Years, maybe. Ages. There was a distant pang in his chest that feels as though it hollowed him out, caved in his chest, and he felt breathless as the call was hung up and he rubbed his eyes, exhausted where a few minutes ago he had been wide awake. He can imagine, disjointedly, his mum’s hand in his hair and her voice, again, calling him her little dandelion.

He chanced a glance at his phone and saw a text from Raihan that was just his name. Just that.

 _Leon_.

He laid down and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t fall asleep for several hours after that.

* * *

On some level it felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like he had been holding his breath with his head under the water and was daring himself not to come up for as long as possible, until his vision began to go dim and blurry and he _had_ to come up for air again, or loss of consciousness would do it for him. It was just that he didn’t know what he was waiting for.

The answer came close to the midway point of week three after he had been defeated.

There was a knock on his door, perfunctory and resonating, that reached him even with his music playing in his workout room. He paused the music as the front door swung open and he tensed. There were a few people who had access to his townhouse at all times, and unless someone had broken in after knocking for some blasted reason, it had to be his mum, Hop, or——

Raihan came into the room carrying a large brown paper bag that Leon imagined had at least two bottles of liquor in one hand and two plastic bags weighed down with groceries of some sort in the other. It was such a random scene that Leon blinked a handful of times, in absolute silence as he stared at his friend, oddly surprised in spite of himself.

“Well?” Raihan sounded annoyed and impatient. Strikingly so. “Come on, I’m a guest, aren’t I?”

They ended up in the kitchen, where Leon watched Raihan put groceries into his refrigerator. It was a somewhat out of body experience, watching him dump fruit into the fruit drawer and vegetables into the vegetable drawer, not to mention the protein that he acquired, and the bread that he put beside the eggs, despite the multiple conversations they’ve had where he questioned Leon’s sanity for putting bread in the refrigerator. It was even his preferred brand of bread.

It occurred to him that this was the first time that he had seen Raihan since his loss. Going three weeks without seeing each other wasn’t rare, but it was abnormal considering they often saw each other every other week to hang out if they had time in their busy schedules. Furthermore, they often texted or called each other every day, talking about nothing at all a great deal of the time. Just talking to each other.

To say that Leon had been avoiding Raihan isn’t entirely accurate. But it wasn’t inaccurate either, he supposed. He hadn’t gone entirely silent on Raihan, for what it was worth, but only responded to a handful of his messages, leaving conversations hanging and being generally silent all around. Meanwhile, Raihan had continued to send him a few messages every day and Leon didn’t know why he’d been so distant with him. Why he’d be so distant with everyone in his life, really. He didn’t know why he felt strange watching Raihan put away those groceries that he had bought for Leon, why he felt not wholly present, why he wanted to apologise —— or, well. He knew why he wanted to apologise.

He didn’t know why he wanted to fall into Raihan’s chest and stay there, though.

“I’m mad at you,” Raihan said before he had a chance to say a thing, straightening from the refrigerator and letting the door close behind him. “So we’re going to drink.”

He was right about the paper bag, at least. There were actually three bottles of liquor, one bottle of rum and a bottle of vodka and another of whiskey, and Raihan had grabbed mixers, also. They drank together somewhat frequently. After each of their battles as well as a handful of times when they’re hanging out at one of their places. It’s rare for them to drink to excess, often because they have something to do the next day, but it’s hardly unheard of.

“Okay,” Leon said, unable to say anything else.

* * *

“I’m stayin’ over,” Raihan said some time later, drunk but not quite plastered and half asleep on his bed already.

“Okay,” Leon said, again, equally as drunk and staring at the ceiling of his room again.

* * *

During the first few years that he had been Champion, Leon had felt like he was drowning more so than not. Considering he was a thirteen year old kid from a small town suddenly thrust into the limelight and given far more responsibility than any child should get, being overwhelmed was warranted, he supposed, and he often found himself at wit’s end. Missing Postwick and wanting to go home and missing his mum and his family and his little brother and the side garden with the battle ring that he had begged to be installed so he and Sonia could practice for real and all of the Wooloo grazing in the fields and the relative simplicity of it all. He had yearned for it, really. Imagined it when everything became too much.

And when imagining wasn’t enough, he called Raihan, who was back home in Hammerlocke and couldn’t always come visit but was always happy to talk to him, even though he had lost to Leon in the final round. Sonia was there, too, and Leon talked to her just as often. But somehow she seemed a lot more lost compared to Raihan in the aftermath, so he tried to talk about things that didn’t have to do with feeling like the world was about to fall in on him with her. It didn’t seem fair.

It didn’t seem fair to burden either of them with his problems, actually, but sometimes it felt like the whole world was watching him and waiting for him to fail and like he was trying to juggle the whole region and a handful of other planets and like he was trying to swallow an ocean’s worth of water and was drowning beneath the waves, and there wasn’t anyone else to talk to. Not his new manager. Not the assistant that they gave him, for some reason. Not any of the gym leaders, who were a good deal older than him. No one at all.

No one but Raihan and Sonia.

He didn’t divulge the full extent of his feelings, either. The surface of them and a few inches below, at most. It felt like too much to describe exactly what he felt, but it seemed like Raihan understood well enough, and he was good at distracting him. Incredibly good at it, even.

Leon always looked forward to talking to Raihan. Lit up whenever they talked, even. Couldn’t stop smiling over half the time, to boot. Even when Raihan would talk about things that Leon didn’t really care about —— just listening to him was an immense comfort. Something soothing and calm on his frayed nerves. Well. Maybe less so when he talked about things that made Leon uncomfortable for some reason.

“Girls like flowers, I could give her flowers,” Raihan said, when they were sixteen or so, sounding considering.

There was something strangely hollow in the pit of Leon’s stomach and he drank from his water bottle, trying to fill it up. But it was like there was a leak, somewhere, and whenever it was almost full it just drained all over again. Nothing could fill it.

He said the first genuine thing that came to mind, “Give her dandelions.”

“What? Dandelions aren’t romantic, they’re weeds! I was thinking roses, or something like that.”

“I like dandelions,” Leon said, not quite hurt but defensive all the same. “My mum named me for them and I’ve always liked them.”

“Oh. Sorry, Leon,” Raihan sounded awkward and genuinely apologetic. The way that teenage boys tended to when they had misstepped but didn’t really know what to say. “I didn’t know your mum named you for dandelions. Leon’s a pretty common name, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Leon said, smiling as his newly caught Dreepy floated over to him and bumped against his head. “But it was that or Lion. Or Dande, I guess.”

“Hm… It fits you, I guess. Dandelions are strong and resilient and stuff.”

Leon’s face warmed, and he could see Raihan getting a bit red around the edges through their video call, also.

“Anyways,” Raihan said, gaze darting, “I think Tanya is seriously considering handing the gym over to me, soon, so I’m going to be training to become the new Hammerlocke gym leader! It’ll be a good thing to keep me sharp and tide me over until I can get the title of Champion from you,” he grinned wide as he said it.

“You’re welcome to try, greatest rival,” Leon said with a similar grin.

(Raihan didn’t get the girl flowers, but did ask her out. They dated for a few months until they didn’t, and Raihan suddenly stopped talking about her after saying, short and his voice a bit thick to Leon’s ears, that it was over and that was that.)

* * *

They both woke up with headaches the next morning and Leon made Raihan breakfast to apologize for, well. Everything, really. And Raihan ate it, which meant that he accepted the olive branch, at least partially.

There was something warm and fluttering in his chest that he couldn’t describe. Something that wasn’t unknown or new but that he didn’t know what to do with, really. Kind of like giving a powerful pokémon to a new trainer just starting out: too much and overwhelming and terrifying. All that he knew for certain was that it intensified when he looked at Raihan, whose locs were flopped around his face, lit by the weak early morning sun in his living room drinking coffee and eating the breakfast that Leon had made, scooping the scrambled eggs onto his toast, just barely burnt. The way that he liked it.

Something unfurled in his chest and he let it linger. Let it stay. There was a hint here, he could feel it.

* * *

Eventually, interview requests petered off. Appearances slowed, relatively speaking. Gloria asked for his help less and less as she set off rather frequently for one reason or another that he didn’t get from her in the times that he saw her.

It would be a lie to say that his days were empty and full of nothing at all, honestly. All in all, his schedule was far less hectic than it had been when he was Champion, but he still had sponsors and meetings to attend and his face to show here and there. Half the time he wasn’t sure why he was requested so consistently, but he went along. There wasn’t anything else for him to do, after all.

But his heart wasn’t in it. What sponsors he had left could tell and his managers could tell and everyone under the sun could tell, or it felt that way, even though no one ever said anything or acted differently besides him. His mum knew something was up, at the very least, and asked him once per week to come home for a short visit. Longer than the last, if nothing else. And sometimes he thought that Raihan had a better idea than he was letting on. Leon got better at talking to him, didn’t leave most of his messages unanswered, unwilling to have him angry at him, and that was a nice and easy sense of familiarity.

He was trying.

So why did he feel so at odds? Why did he feel as though he was going through the motions of living and nothing more? Why did it feel impossible to get out of bed some mornings? Why did it seem like he lost hours in his townhouse, staring absently at the television and thinking and not thinking all at once, even while his pokémon wandered as he often let them?

Still, he did his job. He did precisely what was asked of him and he did it with a smile on his face and laughter in his tone even as it occurred to him, a month and a half after his defeat, that he didn’t really know how he was supposed to act anymore. Was he supposed to smile so much? Smile so wide? Continue acting the way that he’d acted with his business partners when he was Champion? How was he supposed to carry himself around people who knew him? Why did talking to Hop feel so strange, nowadays?

Hop had wanted to become like his big brother. He wanted to be the Champion.

Leon wasn’t the Champion anymore.

Who was he supposed to be, if not the Undefeatable Champion of Galar?

The television had no answers for him. Neither did his ceiling over his bed.

* * *

“It’s been so long since we spent time together,” Sonia was looking radiant. Brighter, somehow, even beneath the weak and cloud scattered Galar sun. As though she had finally settled into her skin and was accustomed to her body after years of wavering, of being uncertain. It looked nice on her. Lovely, even, the way that her new lab coat did.

“Has it?” it had been a while, really. Quite some time. They had seen each other every day when they were growing up, since they had lived in the same town and shared a similar passion for pokémon and they bonded quickly and automatically, but after he had become Champion ——

A lot of things changed when he became Champion.

“Yeah, absolute ages,” Sonia said, a smile on her face as drank some of her coffee. The café they were at was something straight out of Kalos, hidden away off of a well lit corner of Wyndon. It was where he had taken Elaine several times when they were dating.

“My mum said something like that,” Leon said with a laugh that didn’t feel like an honest laugh on his tongue. “That it’s been ages since I went home.”

“It has been,” Sonia was dropping two sugar cubes into her cup, stirring it. It was an elegant motion, or would be if some of the coffee didn’t spill over the sides. “I can’t remember the last time you were in Postwick for anymore than a night.”

“Being the Champion is hard work,” Leon said, a hint of grandiosity to his tone as his smile widened a touch. “There isn’t a lot of time to go make social calls.”

“But you’ve got time now, don’t you?”

She didn’t speak cruelly or meanly or to hurt. Sonia just spoke, and she spoke the truth in that even mannered way of hers, reasonable after so long of being a bit more flighty than he’d admit to her face. And still it felt as though something deflated in him. It was a reminder that he didn’t want and certainly didn’t need, but she had given it to him all the same, and he tried to smile, all the same.

“I suppose,” he said. The words felt wooden in his mouth, but sounded normal enough.

Sonia’s spoon made a quiet _tink_ ing sound as she set it on the saucer and leaned forward on her elbows. She was looking at him intently, with an unwavering look. Her hair pieces caught in the light and he remembered when she wore a single glittery barrette with two hearts interlocked on it from the time that they were eight until they were fourteen or so. A gift from her mum, if he remembered correctly.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” she said after several long moments of silence that had been broken by a pair of children running past them on the street, as well as a bike going by, and a car or two.

“Of course,” Leon said. He mostly meant it, even.

“You’re lying,” she smiled, still, but there was something different about this smile. Something sad, almost. Rueful, maybe. He didn’t know how to read her as well as he used to.

“What? I’d never lie to you.”

“You’ve lied to me loads of times, Leon. Like when we were seven and we were playing in the lab when we weren't supposed to and something broke. I was afraid that it had been my fault, and was terribly afraid of my grandma being cross with me, but you said it had been your fault,” Sonia said, light as air.

“Ah… I didn’t know you knew. I’m sorry.”

“I figured it out later that night when I got lectured,” she shrugged, before continuing, “but that isn’t the point. You tell little white lies to avoid hurting people, that’s normal. You say you know you can talk to me, but I’m not so sure. We haven’t really spoken in years, Leon. Maybe since before you became Champion.”

Guilt tugged at his chest, an ominous weight. “That’s mad, Sonia, you’re one of my best mates.”

“Maybe. But you hide things from me quite often. To protect me, I guess, or something like that. I always knew that something was wrong after you became Champion, but you didn’t want to tell me, so I left it alone. Kind of like that way I know something is wrong now, but we’re adults, Leon. I don’t want to just leave it. I can’t just leave it like I did when we were young and dumb.”

He felt like he was midflight with Charizard, but without the rush of adrenaline or the excitement filling his lungs, and in their absence he simply felt suspended and vaguely terrified and distantly nauseous. Being read so well is a terrifying prospect in and of itself. Being known so thoroughly is harrowing. Sonia had known him longest of his friends, of course she knew him well, but this felt like a step above. To know that she had known, when they were fourteen, that something was wrong in spite of how he tried to hide it inspired something indescribable in him. Something stifling, filling up his chest and making it difficult to breathe.

The teacup in front of him reflected his face right back at him and he hated how stricken he looked. He took a drink, instead.

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Sonia said, gentle as anything. “But I am here to listen, if you need me. Or to help.”

“I don’t know who I am, if I’m not the Champion,” he said all at once. It felt like his throat was being torn out with the words.

“You’re Leon,” Sonia said after a moment, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“But who is Leon if not the Champion?”

That was the crux if it, he supposed. He had, as a matter of necessity, made being the Champion of Galar part of his identity. He held the title far longer than anyone else in Galar history, and longer than Champions of other regions to boot. Ten years is a long while. Ten years spanning his teenage years and his early adult life. It had been his. His reason for getting up in the morning. Something to bolster him and lift him and give him purpose. Hop had idolized him because of it. He felt secure, because of it. Being the strongest. Being undefeated and undefeatable.

Leon could have lost, somewhere along the line. Could’ve lost on purpose, even, the way that he knew some Champions had in the past to escape it all. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted to. He was good at winning. He liked winning, always had, and the thrill of a good battle motivated him to win again and again and again.

Until he didn’t.

Until he was no longer the Undefeatable Champion, the strongest there ever was. Now he was just Leon, and he hadn’t been just Leon in a long while. In ages, really.

“Well,” Sonia said, after a long pause. “You’re still a Champion, if not the Champion.'

“What?”

“Once a Champion, always a Champion, right?” she regarded him seriously, for all that her mouth still curved into a familiar smile. Changed and unchanged from their childhood. “You don’t have the title, anymore, but people still look up to you. The public _adore_ you, Leon, more than any other Champion in history, I think. It’s why you still make appearances and why you still have sponsors, after all.”

Leon stared at her, uncomprehending.

“Look,” she leaned forward further, reaching over to pull the bill of his hat down over his eyes again, “I’m not your therapist, mate. I don’t think you have a therapist, actually, might want to look into that —— but as far as I can tell, you’re Leon. You’ve just gotta figure out what that means without your title.”

He fixed his hat with minimal grumbling, staring at her with furrowed brows, “You make it sound so simple.”

She laughed, a brief noise, “I don’t mean to, trust me. Figuring your life out is hard, Leon, I only figured mine out recently and everything and I’m still figuring out what it really means to be a professor and what I want to do with my work. Your situation is a little more, ah… involved than mine, I think, but your life isn’t over because you lost after ten years of winning.”

When she put it that way, she had a point.

“And call your mum more. Hell, call me more. Visit home, see your little brother who misses you something fierce. Talk about your feelings, and stop distancing yourself —— being the Champion has never been the only thing in your life, even if you felt that way, and it definitely isn’t now.”

Now he just felt sufficiently chastised. “Sorry, Sonia,” he said, smiling at her wanly. “And thanks.”

“It’s fine,” she said with a smile. “What’re mates for? Now, you’re going to listen to me talk about my lab woes, because I’ve been training a brand new assistant and fighting with my editor about my book and someone has to listen to me, so it may as well be you.”

* * *

Sonia was right about a lot of things, but her perspective as a little skewed. Being Champion was all Leon had done for years, all that he _was_ and he hadn’t thought about what he would do after. He hadn’t thought there would be an after, really, never mind how arrogant that sounded. When you’re undefeatable, you never expect to be defeated.

So what was there?

There were things. Of course there were things. Being Champion had taken up his entire life, to the point where he had entirely neglected every other aspect of his existence, but logic demanded there had to be things that remained in the afterword.

He tried to make a list. An actual, legitimate, paper list of the things that he loved. Pokémon. His family. Kids. Working with kids. Cooking, still. Working out. Nothing else came to mind.

It was a pretty sad list, all things considered, and he stared at it for what felt like hours before crumbling up the piece of paper and throwing it away.

* * *

Two months on from his loss of his title brought the waning of the autumn months along with the first breaths of winter and waking to frost and light smatterings of snow that would melt later that day, in some occasions, or simply just keep piling in others. This meant that Bonfire Night was nearing, after All Hallow’s Eve, and when it arrived he found himself with an empty schedule. Staying in his townhouse made his skin feel too tight and exhaustion settle strangely over his shoulders, so he decided to take a walk around Wyndon and watch where everyone was setting up for the fireworks later that night.

Children were running to and fro, screaming joyously about the festivities that would happen later that night. A few groups even came up to him, asking for his autograph and saying that he was one of their favorite trainers and so on and so forth.

He took a long winding walk that brought him through the parks and down the streets and maybe he got lost a few times before grabbing a cuppa to go from a café he knew was nearby his place and starting to return to his home after being gone for several hours. Long enough that the sky was beginning to go orange and the sun was starting to set on the horizon and the promise of fireworks was drawing ever nearer.

Raihan was waiting for him in his kitchen when he returned.

“Finally!” he said, swinging around on the stool.

“Raihan,” Leon said rather stupidly.

“I’ve been waiting for ages, thought I’d have to stage a search party for you,” there was laughter in Raihan’s voice, for all that he looked Leon up and down, as if checking for anything amiss.

“It’s the middle of the day,” Leon said, bemused in spite of himself. “What’re you doing here?”

“What? I can’t watch fireworks with my best mate on Bonfire Night?”

“You could’ve given me a heads up,” not that he minded either way, honestly. And not that he ever needed a heads up for when Raihan came over. That’s why he gave him a key, after all.

“Nah, it’s more fun to surprise you.”

Which was how they ended up sitting on the roof of his townhouse not so long later, watching the sunset and waiting for the fireworks to start, both of them bundled up in their winter coats and with the mugs of hot tea Leon had insisted they bring up with them beside them. This was actually how they had spent the majority of their Bonfire Nights since Leon had moved into this place. Raihan claimed that he had a better view of the fireworks than he had in Hammerlocke at his place, and he didn’t want to bother arguing. Getting up here wasn’t too difficult either, considering that they were both rather athletic. It was somewhat more difficult to swing out of a window and climb upwards with hot tea on hand, but that’s what a thermos and deep cushioned pockets for the cups was for.

They talked about, as per the usual, both nothing and everything. Their pokémon were primarily inside of the house at the moment, though Dragapult stuck his head through the ceiling several times between them before disappearing again and Flygon peeked his head around the window, too. They could hear them, inside, causing a mild ruckus but nothing too concerning, occasional concern that Torkoal was going to set something on fire accidentally aside.

It felt strangely normal, and it was normal, all things considered. Leon knew logically that their relationship had always been this easy and level give and take between the pair of them, their respective busy schedules and responsibilities notwithstanding. Raihan talked to him frequently about his plans for the gym and changes in strategy but, even more than that, about his family and his life and just about everything that happened to him that he wanted to talk about. To vent about.

Honestly, Leon had always felt bad depending on people. Furthermore he felt bad talking about his own problems, which always seemed so ridiculous in comparison to everyone else’s. He had been the Champion. Sure, it was a stressful job a great deal of the time and he barely had time to breathe, let alone do much else, but it was a title that should be prized above all else and coveted above all others. Leon had been happy, as Champion, with his life the way that it was. He had been, truly.

But it had been empty, too, in a strange all consuming way. When had it started to be like that? Years ago. Ages ago.

“Sonia told me that I should talk to people more,” Leon said during a lull in their conversation, staring at the steadily darkening sky.

“Professor Sonia is a smart woman,” Raihan said solemnly.

So he had noticed. No surprise there, really.

“I… don’t think I’ve been happy. Since I lost,” the words felt strange and stilted in his mouth, even though this was Raihan, of all people, that he was speaking to. “Perhaps… even longer than that.”

Raihan was watching him, he could see it in his periphery. Calm and neutral and waiting, but without expectations and devoid of any pressure on his part. If Leon chose to stop talking here, Raihan may accept it. But he also may not. He’d been so patient with Leon these past few months —— this past decade, perhaps. Ever since they first met and he had been wide eyed and vaguely starstruck by this talented, amazing boy and his pokémon.

“I don’t know, it’s…” he stared at the tea in his hands and felt almost like he was talking to Sonia at that coffee shop again, except it was colder and this was Raihan and that made all the difference in the world, after all. “It’s like I’ve been training this pokémon forever and suddenly it disappeared.”

“That was a terrible analogy,” Raihan said after a beat, humor evident in his tone.

“Yeah, I know,” Leon laughed, glancing over at Raihan, who was lit by the purple sky that only enhanced the richness of his skin, somehow. “I was the Champion for so long… who am I supposed to be now?”

“Be Leon,” Raihan said, startlingly similar to Sonia’s words. “Be yourself. You’ve been losing yourself to the title of Champion for a long time, mate, and I know that it’s what you wanted to do and it made you happy when it wasn’t draining you and eating you alive, but maybe it’s time to find a new dream. Something else that’ll make you happy.”

“Sonia made it sound easy, too,” he straightened and arched his back, feeling and hearing it pop in at least three different places. “I’ve been trying to wrack my brain for something, but…”

“It’ll take some time,” Raihan said, “figuring out your life always takes time. Remember when I was thinking about taking on the gym? I still don’t know why I hesitated so much.”

“Because you were afraid,” it was easy to say when it wasn’t something that he, personally, was going through. But he remembered well when Raihan had been looking in that direction, and how terrified he had been then and even moreso after he got the gym for himself.

Leon had considered being a gym leader, too, but the idea didn’t fit right, for some reason.

“Yeah, there was definitely that. So you’re afraid, but you can power through it, Leon. You may not be Champion anymore, but you’ve still got plenty to offer.”

He made a soft humming noise, considering the kind words and the warmth that seemed to sigh inside his chest that wasn’t put there by the sip of tea he had just taken. Silence settled and he cradled that warmth close, even as they picked up another topic the way that they always had, the flow of their conversation easy and natural and carrying them easily into the start of the fireworks display bursting bright and beautiful above them.

Raihan’s Rotom phone was out taking pictures of the display and snapping a few of Raihan grinning, lit by the fireworks, and Leon indulged him, too, as he generally did. While the former Champion never had an abundant online presence, Raihan had been cultivating his for years, and it was something that Leon knew that he fostered carefully and thoughtfully. Far be it from him to limit his best friend in doing things that he wanted to, even if the start of it had confounded him in part. It was a matter of remembrance for Raihan, and Leon tried his best to support him.

After all, he was there for Leon and had been throughout all of these years unfailingly. It was only right that Leon tried to be there for him in return, even if he failed sometimes, but they had been side by side for so long that Leon sometimes couldn’t imagine life without him.

He couldn’t imagine life without him here, sitting on his roof and being lit bright colors by fireworks, having pictures taken of him by Rotom. Raihan was, in some ways, a cornerstone in Leon’s life. Something absolutely and immovable, something that he would never want to replace and could never replace. He was a bright point in Leon’s life, something wonderful and indescribable and familiar. A person who inspired something warm and tremulous in him, even as he felt bereft and lost in the vast expanse of what life is like _beyond_.

Leon was grateful for him. Always. Grateful, even when something in his chest contracted as Raihan glanced over at him, grinning with his sharp canine showing, and it occurred to him like a firm punch by Rhyperior to the sternum——

“I want to kiss you,” he said, all at once, in a rush of words that felt jumbled and awkward.

A pause. An excruciating pause.

“What’re you waiting for, then?” Raihan said, trying to sound like he normally did. Trying to sound disaffected, but Leon could hear a change in his voice, a shift in his tone, he knew him so well and so thoroughly and.

And he kissed him.

It wasn’t the best kiss he’d ever given, and he’d only kissed three other people in his lifetime. The last person he kissed as his old girlfriend, Elaine, and before that it had been another girl who asked him on a date that he had given a single quick kiss goodnight, and before that it was a girl from Postwick who moved away to Hoenn a few days prior to the start of his own journey. So it was a pretty bad kiss, objectively speaking. A bit too hard and a bit too fast and their noses bumped and their teeth bumped but it was Raihan and Leon felt like his heart was about to burst out of his chest anyways and how utterly soppy, kissing chastely beneath fireworks.

The kiss was bad. But he enjoyed it, until he didn’t.

It was a strange out of body sort of panic. Something so distant that he could ignore it, if he really wanted to, but at the same time couldn’t. At the same time didn’t dare bring himself to. Pulling back from the kiss felt at once like a mistake and the exact right thing to do and he felt dizzy from the rush of emotions that was threatening to overwhelm him and when was the last time he hadn’t felt overwhelmed? When had he started drowning and never stopped?

“Sorry I…” he what?

Raihan’s face was doing something strange. As if he was hurt and angry and annoyed and confused all at once and it felt strangely like losing him. “Leon——”

“Wait I——” Leon didn’t know what he had to say to fix this, or what he was supposed to do, or much of anything, really. In most things he can conduct himself with a measure of confidence, even if it wasn’t real confidence, but he suddenly found himself stumbling and unsure and wavering. With Raihan, of all people. “I’m not sorry about the kiss,” is what he finally said, because he was an adult and had to learn how to talk about his feelings eventually and he couldn’t just let Raihan leave without clarifying. He couldn’t leave doubt. Or, not much of it, anyways. “Or any of it. I’m just… confused and trying to figure things out. I need some time to… think.”

This silence was more excruciating than the last. The fireworks had stopped at some point, and there was still smoke in the air and pokémon flying around and kids running around through the streets.

“Okay,” he finally said.

It didn’t feel okay. Raihan left soon after that, gathering his pokémon and his things as Leon trailed behind him through his place and saw him off at the door. There wasn’t quite a goodbye or a smile and he watched Raihan walk down the street, feeling like an utter ass. And like his stomach wanted to cave in.

* * *

Raihan didn’t talk to him for two days after Bonfire Night, even when Leon messaged him throughout the day. It wasn’t the first time that he had gone quiet, but it was the first time that he had after what felt like an argument, for all that there wasn’t much of an argument at all.

He tried not to think about it too much. Tried not to, even as he checked his phone more frequently than he should and found himself more distracted than usual when he was teaching a gaggle of children at a trainers academy that he had been asked to come to.

And when Raihan did message him, it was a return to normal. Even though it wasn’t normal at all.

But what could he say? What could he do? How could he tell Raihan that he was twisted up and tangled in a mess that he had made and adding something else that he couldn’t begin to describe and that felt immense and ominous and terrifying to him on top felt like too much?

So they continued.

* * *

Throughout their friendship, Raihan had a handful of significant others. Mostly girlfriends, but he had a boyfriend, too, at one point. Leon couldn’t remember how long that relationship had lasted, or how long most of them lasted, only that they tended to be less than four months but longer than a couple of weeks.

The thing was that Raihan wasn’t the type to talk about his partner to excess, really. In the pining stage, before they got together, he occasionally agonized over what he should do to catch their attention or to get with them, but once they were officially in a relationship he didn’t talk about them too much after that. A mention, here and there. A brief message saying that he was with his significant other and couldn’t talk right now.

Leon —— hadn’t, really. He didn’t feel any inclination or urge to date anyone or anything like that. Elaine had been his only somewhat serious relationship which had lasted ten or so months, and it had been a good one. She had been pretty and funny and loved pokémon and battling just as much as he did, with a pretty laugh that filled the room and he had liked her. Quite a lot. But there had been something off, something peculiar about their relationship, like the furniture in a room moved a few millimeters to one side, and they had ended it on amicable and peaceful terms.

He was busy. Always, always busy. He had to be focused and was focused. There was always something to do and somewhere to be and he was the Champion, he had to be the Champion. There wasn’t room for much else.

And what room there was devoted itself to a strange emptiness whenever Raihan was dating someone, or talking about dating someone, or considering dating someone. Leon wasn’t quite so ignorant that he couldn’t recognize some of it as vague jealousy in hindsight, but that begged the question:

Had he always been jealous of the people Raihan dated? The answer he came up with was: probably.

* * *

Leon returned home for the holiday season at his mum’s behest, and because he wanted to, honestly. He had missed home, the smell and atmosphere and his family and how they gathered around the table, bumping elbows and talking loudly, raucously. He didn’t know why he had been avoiding going back home, only that he had and the thought of going back had incited something ominous and forboding in him.

Nonsensical, really.

There was at least a foot of snow when he touched down in the front yard on Charizard’s back. His mum was standing in the doorway with his grandparents right behind and they were smiling at him, waiting for him, and something inside of his chest unknotted at the sight.

Hugs and kisses were exchanged at length and he nearly didn’t let go of his mum at all, wanting to hold onto her for as long as possible, but he relinquished her when she patted his back firmly.

“Welcome home, my little dandelion,” she said.

“Thanks, mum.”

His room was still entirely the same, courtesy of his grandma, and it was always strange to stand in it after a while away. Strange to take stock of the majority of his hat collection and stranger still to realize that he could wear any one of them, now, especially because he hadn’t worn his signature crown hat ever since he lost. He found himself going through them, pouring over them, tracing his fingers over familiar stitching and trying to remember where each one came from, the memories associated.

He widdled away hours, going through his childhood things, until he wandered downstairs and started helping his mom cook, the way that he used to. Cooking felt good, especially since he still hadn’t started cooking again in these past few months. Being in the kitchen was nice, surrounded by the smells of home and the biriyani on the stove as he bumped against his mum and grandma in turn.

“Where’s Hop?” he said as dinner was finished and being plated.

“Still training with Gloria, I think,” his mum said, “I try to tell him not to stay out past dark, but you know how he is, so excitable and focused.”

“That my little brother,” Leon said, immeasurably fond.

If there were absolute facts in this world, they were that the sky tended to be up and the earth was below and Leon was the best, until he wasn’t, and that he loved his little brother. He was sure about that, even more than he was sure about his relationship with Raihan (though there was good reason to be unsure about that now, but still) and that he loved being Champion, when it hadn’t all but suffocated him and swallowed him whole. Hop had been his motivation and his light, in some regards. His energetic, bouncy, talkative little brother. Being his hero had meant a lot to Leon, even when he had stopped coming home so frequently and started to lose his way, in a manner of speaking. Even when his managers had told him that sponsoring his brother was a dangerous move and any favoritism of him, specifically, would look bad to his own sponsors.

That had been a bad conversation.

Regardless, Leon loved him, despite how strange he felt talking to him since the final match of the cup, despite the displacement he felt knowing that he wasn’t his little brother’s hero anymore. He’d loved him since the very first time he had looked at the newborn Hop when he was eight years old and his baby brother had flailed, grabbed his finger, and promptly spit up.

So when he returned home shortly after dinner and ran into the kitchen headlong, skidding to a stop, his face lit up like the Christmas tree in the square and the other one in their living room, something else in his chest knotted. He breathed more easily, somehow, when Hop ran to him and threw his arms around Leon’s shoulders, uncaring of the fact that he had just been elbow deep in soapy water.

“Lee! You’re home!”

“Hey, little brother,” he said, gentle as anything and hugging him in return.

Later that night, after watching a few episodes of a drama with his family and saying goodnight, Hop bounded into their shared bathroom beside him, bouncing on the balls of his feet in spite of the late hour. They brushed their teeth besides each other, the way they did when they were much smaller, and Leon realized that Hop had grown several centimeters since he had last seen him.

“You’re getting bigger,” Leon said, after spitting out his toothpaste.

“Yeah! I grew a whole five centimeters and everything. I reckon I’m gonna be even taller than you, Lee,” Hop said with a mouth full of toothpaste, grinning widely all the same.

“Sure you are, Hop,” Leon said, ruffling his hair before rinsing his toothbrush and tossing it into the shared cup that had changed in the past several years. No real surprise there.

Hop followed him into his room after they were finished getting ready for bed. Leon didn’t mind, and found himself sitting on his desk chair as Hop balanced on the large exercise ball that had to have been reinflated sometime recently.

“Aren’t you tired?” Leon couldn’t help but tease Hop. It was his sworn duty as a big brother, after all.

“Hardly,” Hop said, arms flung out as his body wavered, leaning side to side as he balanced fairly well on the ball. “You’re home, Lee! We haven’t talked much recently either, so now’s my chance.”

It seemed that his avoidance of most people didn’t go unmissed. No real surprise there, either.

“Sorry about that, Hop,” Leon said after a beat, smiling ruefully as he watched Hop, now fifteen years old, try his best to balance properly. “I didn’t mean to avoid you, honest, but that doesn’t count for much.”

“I can’t say it didn’t hurt a bit,” the ball rolled dangerously and Hop flailed, upper body tilting severely to counterbalance the motion. Leon almost jumped forward to catch him, but he balanced himself out well enough. “But I figured you were going through some stuff. Mum said not to press you too much.”

“I was,” that was sort of a lie, wasn’t it? “I still am. It’s had to describe, but simply put I haven’t been coping well with losing the title of Champion.”

“Are you sad, Lee?”

Always so blunt. “I suppose, yes. But talking to you was especially hard.”

Hop look distraught, suddenly, and Leon felt guilty for making him look that way. “Why?”

“I loved being your hero, Hop,” should he tell his little brother a diluted truth? Why should he? Hop was a kid, but he wasn’t stupid, and this was a truth that he was owed, really. “As much as I loved being Champion. I won because I was good, and I love winning, but it felt good to know that I was an inspiration to you. Losing that title and not being your hero anymore… it’s silly, but I feel like I’ve let you down. Like I’ve failed you. I guess I’m not very cool, huh?” Leon couldn’t help but laugh humorlessly.

It was quiet for several moments, and Hop looked even more distressed than he did before, rolling forwards on the ball and setting his feet on the ground. “Lee, you _are_ my hero! You may not be Champion anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be like you when I get older,” earnest and overflowing with heart to the end. “You didn’t fail me or anyone. You gave us an amazing, exhilarating battle! You almost won there in the end, too! It was… it was _spectacular_. It was everything that I wanted, except that you lost, and I guess that I also wanted Gloria to win but —— I wanted you to win, too. I’ve always thought that you were the coolest.”

Leon felt disproportionately gobsmacked, in spite of the fact that he knew the way that Hop idolized him and looked up to him. It was just that he didn’t think he still did whatsoever. “Hop…”

“And I felt the same way,” he continued, as though he had unstoppered his words and they were draining like the soapy, cloudy water in the sink. “Sort of. I was afraid that I was letting you down, during my gym challenge, and that I was giving you a bad name as your little brother. It was terrible and I was scared that you would hate me and that I was going to fail but —— but I got through! I learned, and I learned with my pokémon, and——”

Without thinking about it Leon was up and pulling Hop into a tight embrace, uncaring of the way that the ball bounced and knocked several of his hats from their place on his shelving units. Instead, he held onto his little brother and held him close, squeezing him as firmly as he dared. He hadn’t known. Why hadn’t he known? He supposed that his own distance from Hop throughout the challenge was suspect, alone, and Hop was a perceptive kid. There was something else there too, he was sure, but it didn’t matter. Not if Hop didn’t want to tell him.

“I was so proud of you,” Leon said, quiet, realizing belatedly that he had lifted Hop straight off the ground, though not by much. He really was growing so fast. “The whole way through, I was crazy proud of you and every battle that you fought. I could never hate you, Hop. You’re my baby brother.”

All of a sudden it was like Hop collapsed against him, going loose and shivery and his hands lifted to grab onto Leon, too, a bit belated and shaking, maybe, but holding onto him all the same.

“I love you, Lee.”

“I love you too, Hop.”

They hold onto each other for a while. Making up for lost time.

* * *

It was late at night when he texted Raihan, _You're mad at me._

Despite the late hour, it didn't take him long to respond, _A bit._ And, chewing on the inside of his mouth, Leon reached out to respond to that text before the notification that Raihan was typing popped up and he paused. And he waited, until: _Give me some time, Leon. The time that I'm giving you._

Leon stared at the short exchange of texts for longer than he'd like to admit before rolling over and going to sleep.

* * *

Boxing Day found the whole family sitting in the living room, surrounded by torn wrapping paper with presents strewn this way and that. Hop was leaning against Leon’s side, yawning because he had been up all night and was exhausted, with Dubwool by the fire and Charizard’s head poking in through the archway and their pokémon scattered this way and that and there was music on in the background, as well as the television.

The news was talking about the fallout from Rose’s scheme, still, particularly in regards to the mass amounts of business that he had accrued and was technically the head of, despite the fact that he was in jail. It was going through a list of his properties, not the least of which was Rose Tower, which had turned into something of an eye sore in Wyndon, with everyone wondering what could possibly be done with such a large construct.

And it occurred to him, sudden as a smack over the head.

Leon all but dove for his phone, dislodging Hop in his rush.

* * *

Purchasing Rose Tower is quite the expense, for all that the price is, conceivably, relatively lower than it would have been, had Rose himself not nearly destroyed Galar all but single handedly.

Luckily, being Champion for ten years with an excess of sponsorships and investing his money, thanks to his financial team, early on meant that Leon had quite the fortune that, in spite of giving a good portion of it to his family and charities, remained rather modest as far as _fortunes_ went and thus, it could be put to other uses. With some help from investors, anyways.

Investors couldn’t deny the attractive nature of a Battle Tower and all of the revenue it could bring, particularly when it came to visitors from other regions. Nor can they deny one that doubles as a trainer’s school. Especially when both are ran by the former undefeated Champion of Galar.

* * *

Taking some of his stuff from Postwick to bring it to Wyndon was stranger than he thought it would be. It was all _his_ , of course it was, but it felt like it had been preserved. Like it was from another time, and therefore untouchable. But a lot of it carried good memories. Happy memories. Things that he wanted to be able to look back on whenever he wanted.

He took most of his hat collection and some of his smaller trophies and it felt strange, putting things in his townhouse which had gone largely undecorated for such a long time. To put trophies on the bookshelf and the mantlepiece and to mount new shelves to display his hats on and to pretend like he had been living in these rooms, all along.

It was even weirder to fill up his refrigerator entirely on his own.

But he felt more settled. At least for a few moments. A few days. But it was better than nothing, and it was better than living in the strange limbo that he had worked himself into.

* * *

Rose Tower became his in early February, and he hadn’t seen Raihan in person for more than a few minutes since Bonfire Night several months ago. They still talked every day, just about, and it wasn't like they hadn't gone months without seeing each other in person before, but it wasn’t the same. Not at all.

The absence was a yawning pit in his chest.

* * *

The day that Rose Tower is officially renamed the Battle Tower, with Leon as its owner and head, he doesn’t stay in Wyndon. It’s rather daft to leave when everything was just starting to get off the ground properly, but there were other things to attend to. More important things to address than his new passion project.

Charizard knows the fastest flight path to Hammerlocke by heart, with some mild adjustments depending on the wind and the skies, themselves. It was chilly and brisk, still winter, even if the tail end of it, and Leon kept his head down and close to the warm hide of his trusted companion, watching as Galar passed beneath them, largely snowy expanses this far north. When snow began to transition into grass into city, he knew that they were nearing their destination, and he patted Charizard’s flank gently.

“Thank you,” he said after they touched down, petting his snout before returning him to his ball.

Raihan lived in an apartment in Hammerlocke just down the street from the gym, nothing showy or extravagant but it was certainly his, inside and out. The interior was dark and sleek and homey and there was a wall of pictures that he had taken with friends and fellow gym leaders and some memorable opponents. Leon knew that he was in a good number of them, and could picture their positions without even looking.

In the kitchen there was a Goomy relaxing in a cool spot on the tile, which blinked at him and his presence but allowed him to pet it a few times, leaning into his warm touch before going back to napping.

Leon knew this apartment as well as he knew his own. He knew that the right most cushion on the couch had the most sink and give because that was where Raihan preferred to sit. He knew that the lights were a bit dimmer than they would be standard across the apartment, except in the bathroom. He knew where the towels were and exactly where everything was in the kitchen. He knew that Raihan never made his bed but kept his nightstand impeccably clean for reasons that he couldn’t figure out, even after all this time. He knew that the small mat by the door to leave your shoes on was put there for himself alone, because Raihan knew how he felt about wearing shoes inside of the household. The way that he knew there was some of his clothes and one of his favorite hats here, and a spare toothbrush, and spare everything for him, really.

How long had it been this way? Had _they_ been this way? Forever, maybe.

Was it possible to pine for someone when you had no idea you were pining to begin with? Apparently so.

Leon sat on the second cushion from the right, his usual spot, and turned on the television to wait, flipping to some random movie for background noise while he waited. It occurred to him that he should think of something to say. Anything, really. Anything at all. But nothing came to him and he stopped thinking about it, heart racing and head light and his chest felt like a mess, as though someone had reached in and scrambled everything in there.

So instead he thought about the logistics of the Battle Tower and how he wanted to set it up and the ranks that were going to be included and the prizes as well as the school that would be on the first few floors, per his insistence and request. He would have to get teachers and lecturers and whatnot for it, and there was the matter of publicizing the whole ordeal. His bid to buy what was formerly Rose Tower was hardly a wholly private affair, but still there was an image to consider and——

When the door opened Leon turned off the television immediately, twisting on the couch to look at Raihan, who was getting back from training, it appeared. In spite of the chilly weather outside, he had a jacket slung across his shoulders and a short sleeved activewear top on with a pair of joggers and the sight of him was like being bowled over by a herd of Wooloo.

“Leon?” he sounded surprised and confused, which was fair considering Leon was sitting in his apartment unannounced, and between the pair of them Raihan definitely showed up without notice more often. Sometimes he called Leon unfailingly and strangely polite. Leon just said that his mum taught him manners, and they would laugh.

“I love you,” he said, rather than anything else under the sun.

It wasn’t the wrong thing to say, yet it wasn’t exactly the right thing to say either. But it was as honest as he could be, as honest as he could manage, an absolute truth that he hadn’t realized the full extent of until… not right this moment, but recently. Very recently. Of course he loved Raihan, he was his best friend. Loving him was as innate to him as loving Hop or Sonia or his family. But how long had he _loved_ him? Longer than he could imagine, really. It was a concept that was impossible to pinpoint. He couldn’t begin to think of a time when he hadn’t been in love with Raihan, even if he hadn’t known all along.

So it surprised him, a little bit. It surprised Raihan, too, if the way that his eyes widened and his head tilted was anything to go by.

“What?”

“I love you,” he said, standing from the couch and turning to face Raihan properly. He was aware that it felt like his heart was primed to spontaneously combust and that anxiety, a familiar thing, was ricocheting through his body, but it all felt strangely far away. Like he was examining it all through ice. “And… I want to kiss you again. Properly, this time. Without apologizing.”

Raihan’s jaw worked, as if he was at a loss for words. “Say it again,” he finally said.

“I love you,” he said automatically, looking at Raihan dead on as he rounded the couch, bumping into the arm but not letting that or the sound of the gym back on his arm being dropped with a dull thuh deter him. “I have for a long time, I think, and I want to kiss you again and… and to apologize for last time and talk about us.”

“Again.”

“Raihan.”

“Leon.”

They were all but toe to toe and Leon had to tilt his head back to accommodate for their height difference and to look at Raihan properly. He’d always been taller, quite a bit taller at that, but had the difference always set something shivery crawling down his spine? Maybe, maybe not.

Raihan smelled like clean sweat and the cologne that he frequently wore and something spicy and something else that was inherently and uniquely him. Altogether it was a scent that Leon had smelled countless times before, and he had always liked the way Raihan smelled. It was familiar, like the smell of his mum’s cooking or the shampoo that he had used when he was a child. Here, he found himself swaying into it, leaning well into Raihan’s space as his hands settled, tentative and slow so as to allow for a denial of any sort, just above his waist, palms pressing against his flank. And Raihan didn’t loom, exactly, but he was definitely present and definitely tall and definitely curving his back to bring their faces closer together.

“I love you,” he said again.

This kiss was better than the last one. Less of their teeth clicking, though their noses still bumped, not to mention that there was the benefit of not being outside on a roof. Leon arched himself against Raihan’s body, feeling encased and warm in him as his arms circled around him and held him close and his own hands settled against the dip of Raihan’s spine. It was something more intimate than Leon had ever experienced before, dizzying and consuming and they shifted, half staggered, and the back of the couch dug into his ass and, bloody hell, they were going to fall right over.

Leon gasped, breaking the kiss and clinging onto Raihan’s top as they wavered. He could feel the arms around him tightening and Raihan’s thighs working to keep them upright as they leaned precariously —— it wouldn’t be too big of a deal, honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that the mostly glass coffee table was. Well. Right there.

But, they didn’t fall, and he found himself staring at Raihan with wide eyes, and Raihan staring back. Several moments passed before the compulsion to laugh started to overwhelm him and Leon gave into it, chuckling helplessly at the state of them. After a beat, Raihan started to laugh, too, but bumped his nose against Leon’s forehead to tilt his head back and kiss him again, laughing still.

The back of the couch was pretty uncomfortable where it was pressing against him but Raihan was taking up much more of his body’s surface area at the moment and there was nothing to complain about there. Nothing at all.

* * *

"What's it like, being Champion?" Raihan once asked him when they were fifteen and it was a rare chance for them to be together, face to face. Champion business had brought him to Hammerlocke and everything.

Terrifying. Horrifying. Like drowning, constantly. Like he was being suspended by Charizard miles above the ground and he didn't know when he was going to fall. But amazing, awesome, fantastic, like all of his dreams come true but with a million things piled on top of him all at the same time. The right amount of wonder and the wrong amount of stress and Leon didn't know what to say to Raihan. How to put it into words. That the dream that they both had come true for him, and he loved it, but he found it exhausting and felt ungrateful and guilty all at once.

It was a lot. It was impossible to put succinctly into words and it occurred to him to lie and smile and say that it was wonderful without saying all of the other things, but lying to Raihan felt strange and ill fitting and he didn't even know where to begin with that. The silence had stretched too long, he knew that much, but Raihan didn't seem to mind.

He didn't seem to mind at all, and when he reached out to take Leon's hand he squeezed it gently and grinned, sharp toothed and vibrant. "Nah, it's okay, Leon. You don't have to tell me. Today's your free day, right? Let's go do something fun."

"You just want to battle," Leon said as he smiled, the knot in his chest loosening. He didn't mind battling Leon. Not at all.

"Of course!" Raihan started to walk, pulling Leon behind him, "I need practice for when I take over the gym from Tanya. Let's do another double battle later, but first I wanted to show you this sick new restaurant that opened."

And Leon followed him, feeling light as air and luminous and happy. Happier than he'd felt in weeks. Months, maybe. He almost felt as though everything would be alright, if Raihan was there.

* * *

Raihan’s bed was nice. Leon knew this from previous experiences sleeping in it after drinking or spending too long over at his place and their arguments about whether or not he’d sleep on the couch constantly culminating in them sharing the bed. But he really did have a fairly large, spacious bed with amazingly soft sheets and everything. He had even gotten a spare blanket from the closet because he knew that Leon tended to sleep with at least three blankets, though it turned out he hadn’t needed it since Raihan was a bloody furnace of a human being, apparently.

His shoulder made for a mediocre pillow, all things considered, but Leon wasn’t in any hurry to move from where he had pressed himself along Raihan’s side with his palm pressed against his chest, feeling the distant beat of his heart, while Raihan’s thumb rubbed along his arm soothingly. There was music playing from somewhere that Leon didn’t care enough to lift his head and check for, knowing that there were five different speakers in this apartment and there was one hidden somewhere in the bedroom. Rotom had probably connected to it automatically at some point.

“I love you, too” Raihan said, “I have for a while, you absolute tosser.”

Leon laughed against Raihan’s skin. “I should’ve figured it out sooner. Or you could’ve said something,” he spoke more lightheartedly than anything, actively self-deprecating inasmuch as he was playfully ribbing him. Raihan pinched his skin, a gentle motion that didn’t hurt at all.

“I figured there wasn’t much of a point,” he seemed to make an aborted shrugging motion, and Leon twisted, craning his head to look at him again. This wasn’t the best angle for Raihan, but that wasn’t saying much. Raihan didn’t have any bad angles, really. “You were too focused on being Champion, everyone could tell. Elaine was an exception and she looked good for publicity, but you didn’t allow anything to distract you and you were impressively thick headed about it. So I decided not to tell you, in the meantime.”

“Ah… so you were,” Leon paused, unsure of himself and what he was about to say.

“As if,” Raihan grinned, a touch more muted than his usual, but he could see his sharp canines clear as anything. That was also the angle, but, “Get your head out of your ass. I wasn’t wasting away for you, Leon. If anything was going to happen it would happen, but I never agonized over it.”

Leon’s mouth was sore from where he had been chewing on the inside of his lip pretty devotedly over the past several months, and he relinquished the piece of skin as he pushed himself onto his elbows and leaned closer to Raihan again, and he smiled in spite of himself. Guilt was a familiar and ugly feeling settled in the pit of his chest, but he supposed he’d have to learn how to live with it, or how to convince himself to stop feeling that way eventually. “I’m still sorry for making you wait.”

That grin softened into a quieter smile and Raihan’s hand was warm against his face, his lightly calloused palm warm and dry against his cheek. Leon pushed some of Raihan’s locs from his face, just wanting to touch him. Always wanting to touch him, now. “Actually, I was pretty heartsick. Utterly broken up over you.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“That’s a lot of missed time to make up for.”

“We have all the time in the world.”

“You’re a CEO now, y’know. And I’m still a gym leader.”

“Yeah, but I’ve recently heard of something called having an identity outside of work. I’m thinking of working on one for myself.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s the focused face I love so much.”

And they kissed again. And again. And again.

Leon would figure it out, which is to say: life. It was bound to be a series of unfortunate events and twist and turns and days that felt more empty than they didn't as he struggled to get a grip on himself, the way he had pretended to for so long, but this was a start. A good start. The best start, maybe.

Maybe it was disgustingly soppy but he felt like he could figure it out with Raihan by his side, too.

All of this could be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i was also going to give him a therapist named evelyn but that didn't really fit into the story, sadly. anyways, feel free to follow me on twitter [@fraldrius](https://twitter.com/fraldrius), if you'd like.


End file.
